Hundreds of Afghans have marched to the parliament complex in Kabul demanding the withdrawal of US special troops from the eastern province of Wardak. The demonstrators were infuriated by reports of civilians being tortured and killed.

"They were demanding the withdrawal of American special
forces from Wardak and also the release of some people detained by
the Americans in the province," Kabul deputy police chief
General Daud Amin told AFP.

The rally with several hundred participants, mainly from Wardak,
was overseen by a considerable number of armed riot police.

"The demonstration was peaceful, but the protesters shouted
anti-US slogans," Aljazeera has quoted General Mohammed Zahir
as saying.

President Hamid Karzai earlier ordered elite US military units
to pull out of the strategic province adjacent to Kabul after
claiming that US soldiers and Afghan militia working with them had
tortured and murdered civil citizens.

As an example of abuse Karzai’s February statement cited nine
villagers, who "disappeared in an operation by this suspicious
force" last October. Two school teachers and seven truck drivers
are believed to be among them. Their whereabouts remain
unknown.

“A student was taken away at night from his home, whose
tortured body, with his throat cut, was found two days later under
a bridge," the statement also read.

The latest case involving the deaths of innocent Afghan
civilians took place on February 28, when two children of seven and
eight years old were ‘'mistakenly' destroyed by NATO troops in the
south of the country, as the military alliance acknowledged in an
official statement. The children were tending cattle
when they were killed.

Karzai’s initial demand was that US special forces withdraw by
March 10, but later he would give more time to American military
officials, who, in turn, claimed they were still negotiating the
security handover in Wardak.

Afghan security forces are taking over responsibility across the
country for battling the Taliban insurgency as the NATO-led
coalition prepares to pull out most of its 100,000 troops by the
end of next year. The planned 2014 pullout is believed to leave
Kabul unable to survive the Taliban onslaught.